90 per cent investigation of Kumbh Mela covid test fraud is completed

The team constituted under the Chairmanship of the Chief Development Officer (CDO) on the orders of the District Magistrate Haridwar has completed 90 per cent of its investigation in the Kumbh Mela covid test fraud. Haridwar District Magistrate, C Ravi Shankar has said that the investigation team has completed 90 per cent of the investigation and will soon submit its report.

Haridwar (Uttarakhand): The team constituted under the Chairmanship of the Chief Development Officer (CDO) on the orders of the District Magistrate Haridwar has completed 90 per cent of its investigation in the Kumbh Mela covid test fraud. In this case, Haridwar District Magistrate, C Ravi Shankar has said that the investigation team has cross-checked 90 per cent of the phone numbers. Its report will be available soon. Further action will be taken after receiving the report.

District Magistrate C Ravi Shankar said that the arrest would be made based on the investigation report. The investigation report will be given to the Special Investigation Team. At the same time, the Haridwar District Magistrate has rejected the separate investigation being done by the Kumbh Mela Health Department. He said that the investigation was entrusted at the district level through the state government, for which an investigation team was constituted. Therefore, there is no justification for conducting any parallel investigation.

Ten private labs were authorised by the Uttarakhand government for the Covid-19 RT-PCR test in Haridwar Kumbh. Max Corporate Service of Delhi was one of the 10 labs assigned the responsibility. This same company had further given this responsibility to two of its authorised labs - Dr Lal Chandni of Delhi and Nalwa of Hisar, Haryana. However, around one lakh covid test reports issued by these two labs are under suspicion.

The scam was unearthed after a person in Punjab got a call that the report of his RT_PCR test done in Haridwar, has come negative. That person didn't even travel to Haridwar during the Kumbh Mela. He complained to the local administration, which took the issue seriously. The same person also informed the matter to the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR).

The ICMR sought a reply from the Health Secretary of Uttarakhand and ordered an inquiry. In the preliminary investigation, about one lakh corona tests came under suspicion. The investigation was started and it was revealed that these two labs had conducted hundreds of fake tests registered under the same phone number, address, and Aadhar card.

Following this, Haridwar District Magistrate C Ravi Shankar had constituted an investigation team under the leadership of Chief Development Officer (CDO) Saurabh Gaharwar. At the same time, on the orders of Haridwar District Magistrate, Chief Medical Officer Haridwar, SN Jha filed a case against Max Corporate Service and its two authorised labs Dr Lal Chandani of Delhi and Nalwa of Hisar in Haryana under various sections. A case was registered and a Special Investigation Team (SIT) was also constituted to investigate the Kumbh Corona test fraud, which is investigating the matter separately.

This Covid test fraud in Haridwar Kumbh Mela is a glaring reminder of the 'super spreader event' of Kumbh Mela. Uttarakhand government has cancelled the Kanwar Yatra but Uttar Pradesh is citing religious traditions to allow the annual event. UP needs to prevent this annual yatra, keeping in mind the repeated warnings of ICMR, IMA, and the Union Health Ministry about the impending third wave of Covid-19.